


Ouroboros

by PantsTerror



Category: Zero Escape: Zero Time Dilemma - Fandom
Genre: F/M, Graphic depiction of pregnancy, Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-11-14
Updated: 2016-11-13
Packaged: 2018-08-30 22:42:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,252
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8552083
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PantsTerror/pseuds/PantsTerror
Summary: [SPOILERS for D-End: 2//alternative timelines]The words were dry in her mouth. “I… need to tell you something. Sigma…”





	

She woke up not in a cold sweat, but a driving panic. Throwing the shared blanket from her shoulders, she sped as fast as her feet would carry her to the small bathroom stall that was tucked away outside the locker room. Though her hands were shaking, she made sure to carefully lock both doors between herself and the main hallway. In case it did happen, she didn’t want Sigma to hear.

Maybe the act of running there would be enough to make it stop. Her heart pounded, and she sat on the cool tile, bare-legged, in front of the toilet. _Don’t think about the last time this thing was cleaned._ She lifted the seat and blinked rapidly. _Don’t think about the last thing you ate._ She clenched her thumb in her left fist; supposed to help with the nausea, she knew, having told the trick to so many of her own patients. But she knew that usually didn’t work. She wondered if Zero stocked the shelter with Zofran, and why she hadn’t thought to look before. But she knew, silently, unwillingly, that even if it were, she probably wouldn’t allow herself to take it on principle. Supposedly it’d be safe, but would she be willing to risk it?

That’d be _if_ she even acknowledged that she was pregnant. 

She’d been avoiding that for more than a few weeks now, but she was pretty certain that only a few days after she’d run off to the Transporter, she felt something changing in her body that she hadn’t felt before. Well, that, and she hadn’t had even the slightest sign of a period.

It didn’t make sense. She tried with her ex-husband, probably more times than he even realized. Counted fastidiously and wrote down basal temperatures, the whole nine yards. She’d begged him to get tested, but he said he wouldn’t pay for something that would just end up costing him more money no matter what the result was. 

“I could do one under the table for you,” Rebecca had offered. “I have an in with the staff in the fertility clinic, if you just wanna—”

“No, thanks,” Diana had declined. She remembered Rebecca’s sympathetic smile through her tear-blurred vision.

“Probably him, anyway.”

But in retrospect, Diana wouldn’t have been surprised if her ex-husband had had a vasectomy without telling her. That one long weekend he was away just a few weeks after their wedding, supposedly “on business,” but then didn’t want to touch her at all when he returned…

She felt a lurch, but swallowed hard, kept clenching her fist and breathing with her tongue against the roof of her mouth. _Can’t let what little food we have go to waste_.

Not now. Not when she was definitely, thoroughly housing the beginnings of a baby.

Was it naive to think all this time that she’d been the one unable to conceive? She hadn’t doubted it for a second when she pulled Sigma close. Of _course_ she didn’t need to worry about protection because she’d tried for two years with her ex with no results. Of _course_ that time wouldn’t be different—or the next time. Or the _next_ time. Or the next several times.

“It’s okay,” she’d even told Sigma from the beginning, “I know I can’t have children.”

He’d looked away with a slight scowl.

“Hey, I didn’t get pregnant on the moon, right?”

He wrestled for a moment before confirming, “... No.”

“Then, trust me.”

She clenched her eyes shut. How beguiling it must have seemed, adding to the other embarrassing things she’d said to him the night she’d drunkenly begged him for death.

How he’d trusted her without an ounce of worry; how could she be so numb to hold hope in the outside world, but thrive on it here in the shelter? Even as Sigma ticked another day on the wall, it didn’t occur to her that it’d been a while since she’d needed to search for menstrual supplies in the cabinets. Which, if she recalled from her search in the first month, were exceedingly difficult to be found. If Zero had somehow intended for this to happen and _not_ planted those supplies, she wouldn’t be able to forgive him. She wondered how nice it must have been for Akane outside, not having to worry about the particulars of her cycle. 

She slammed her fists on the thin porcelain, nausea subsiding as the sides of her hands pounded.

“Dammit,” she whispered.

This wasn’t supposed to happen, not this way. But it was ironic that she’d left years of work for the promise of half a million dollars only to end up like one of her patients.

In the outside world, did Rebecca feel her absence? When Diana had filed for the sick leave—to “care for her ailing mother” rather than “enter an isolation experiment”—it seemed to go through too quickly. Perhaps it was too well-known, too public that her ex-husband was on the prowl, too shameful to admit that Diana _should_ be leaving, and the circumstances didn’t really matter. With a wink and a nod, Rebecca could have easily processed termination paperwork as though Diana had left peacefully of her own will rather than in an effort to escape. There wouldn’t be a reason for anyone to call the experiment headquarters looking for Diana. They’d have hoped for the best, or expected the worst from her former life.

And now she sat slumped over the toilet in a bomb shelter beneath Dcom, pregnant by a man nobody in her old life would have even met. 

She didn’t risk laughing lest it upset her stomach further, but Diana mused on how differently this could’ve gone on the outside. Maybe she met Sigma at a fancy conference, took him on dates to mini-golf and the movies and even a day trip to wine country before she let him know what part of the county she lived in. He’d get a job on the other coast and she’d all but jump at a reason to move away from where her ex-husband surely was.

And if she got pregnant… well, she knew exactly what the procedure would be, she’d find a good GP and go to appointments where she’d know how to guide the ultrasound better than the tech. The nurses would smile at her even if they’d seen a million mothers-to-be, would congratulate her and guide her through stress tests, glucose tests, genetic tests. She wondered what her birth plan would be, whether she’d want the drugs or a natural approach. 

Her face paled. Well, she wouldn’t have much of a choice now. And that’s _if_ …

She thought of the TV monitor, of Zero’s cruel countenance flashed between gory footage of the slaughtered teammates from other wards. If that hadn’t bothered Zero, if that were part of winning the game, Diana didn’t doubt that something like a miscarried fetus could easily count among the dead.

The calorie deficiency alone could do it. Adding 300 to a normal diet would suffice, but she calculated the breastfeeding nutrition and—it simply wasn’t going to be found in a dwindling supply of rations. Surely the baby wouldn’t form at anything more than underweight.

Little hand curling around her finger, not even closing around it. Premie baby girl wrapped in so much tape, breathing and monitoring devices thoroughly strapped. Just a faint wisp of hair, and eyes that barely opened. Didn’t last 24 hours. Those were the hardest days, the ones where she covered for the NICU and cared for the newborns who couldn’t be held or comforted, the ones who could barely cry. The devastated, tired parents hovering and praying. 

Diana crossed her arms across the top of the open toilet bowl and rested her head. Could she ask Sigma to witness it, if it came down to it? Maybe it’d be better not to tell him at all, just hope that the low calorie intake would… eliminate the question before too much more time dragged on.

—No. No, she couldn’t possibly do that.

But how was she going to tell him? Her eyelids pulled heavily and her nausea remained silent, and the hypnotic notion of a brief rest offered much more respite than thinking about it.

The word “FATE” floated in the front of her mind.

Sometime after the haze had set in, Gab’s unmistakable scratches at the door roused her. Poor soul must’ve known she was in there.

What jolted her awake was that the noise would surely have woken up Sigma, and a locked bathroom door would have been seriously suspicious to him at this point in their familiarity. Luckily, her stomach felt more settled; she’d’ve searched for some peppermint _anything_ had she not already known she wouldn’t find it inside that bathroom.

Instead, she unlocked and stepped through the doors gently to greet Gab’s panting, almost-smiling face. Gab licked her hand before trotting off toward the lounge, where she followed.

But Sigma wasn’t there. Any other day, she’d’ve jogged the entire floor plan to make sure he hadn’t flown the nest; but today, she was glad for a moment to quickly clothe herself alone. Surely her stomach hadn’t protruded profoundly more than the day before, but each time she did up her skirt, it became more of a struggle. Better Sigma not witness it; not when she was still so unsure of what to do.

Just as she smoothed over the last button, hiked higher than usual, Diana turned to see Sigma in the doorway.

“I-I didn’t wake you, did I?” she blurted.

His expression faded from vague concern. “Not exactly. I would have woken up anyway, though I’ve been waiting for the bathroom to be free for a bit.”

He walked toward her and she took a half-step back. “I’m sorry—go ahead…”

“Don’t be sorry,” Sigma said. He leaned down to kiss the top of her head gently, and she tried to stay calm as he looked her over. “Be right back.”

Diana watched him follow the path back toward the lockers, then started pacing. Gab, unfazed, continued to trot back to his vent, and it wasn’t until she was alone that Diana let out a breath she didn’t realize she was holding.

She placed her hand on her stomach—hoping for the unease to stay put but also crushingly self-conscious she hadn’t covered up the impending bump enough. While she’d totally forgotten the fruit-size comparisons of fetuses from her nursing textbooks, she knew they never were as large as they felt.

But she was sure he never woke up after she did, and that alone would have made him suspicious. He was certainly going to look for any traces of sickness in the bathroom. Good that he wasn’t going to find anything.

That aside, her stomach fluttered with anxiety enough that she wondered if she wouldn’t puke anyway. She eyed the bar and the trashcan she knew would be behind the counter just in case.

Before she could make her move closer to it, Sigma was back already.

“Hey…”

She froze. Sigma stood with his hands on his hips, settled. And he had that look on his face, the one he developed when he was about to explain something difficult.

What was he going to say? Diana’s mind flashed with evidence, accusations, knowing that she would well be guilty if Sigma suddenly just _knew_ the way he suddenly just _knows_ sometimes. She felt the flush rise on her cheeks and steeled herself for impending pain. At least, her last husband would have beaten the hell out of her if he’d so much as suspected she’d gotten pregnant without his full, enthusiastic effort—not that Sigma was that way, but right now, in this moment, it was all she could imagine. Like the baby was some sort of anchor to keep him from flying away. Like she’d done it on purpose, misled him to sleep with her regardless of what the consequences would be for a man who was, in body, 22 and still a student with loans. 

Whatever the morphogenetic field was, however it functioned, she decided she didn’t want to let it make her look like a liar for omitting this truth. Even if he’d already figured it out, she was going to make this right. Even if there was no way of knowing whether help would arrive, or whether the fetus would develop safely on small cans of shelter food, she had to tell him. She swallowed and took a few steps closer, meeting his gaze.

The words were dry in her mouth. “I… need to tell you something. Sigma…” Her hands both gravitated toward her middle. “... I _may_... be…”

As if she didn’t know. As if she could stop herself from choking up if she stared at his shoes instead of his face.

In the ensuing silence, she felt the goosebumps run up and down her limbs, unwilling to look up in case he stood with the same alarmed look on his face as when they realized they’d be stuck here. She knew it. She grasped her stomach just a little tighter. 

But she felt a warmth on top of her hands, and glancing up, realized Sigma had placed his hand atop hers and was staring at her with wide eyes.

“Really?” His voice was soft and thin, but she didn’t break the guard on her abdomen.

She nodded, realizing her eyebrows had furrowed. There came the stinging in her throat again, and the stinging in her nose.

“Are you sure?” Sigma asked again, tone unchanged.

“Yeah,” Diana resigned, blinking and unwittingly sending a few determined tears down her cheeks. But in a moment, his thumbs were on her face, gently catching the trails. She brought herself to look up at him.

Where she expected retribution, she saw lifted eyebrows, glistening eyes, an open mouth. No raised hands except to hold her face. But how…?

“You’re pregnant!” he exclaimed. “Diana!”

Seeing the youth in his face, Diana still found it difficult to discern that he wasn’t just a young student whose life would have been all but ruined by a baby, but a much more mature man with whom she’d supposedly lived for years and probably had been longing to bring them together as a family. Yet, was this still not a life-ruiner? Here, in a shelter where they could barely feed themselves or hope for rescue?

“I… I know I should have said something earlier, I should have—” she stammered.

“You can get pregnant!” he rebutted. “M-Maybe it didn’t happen at the best time but, Diana, I didn’t… _you_ didn’t think you could, and you did!”

She couldn’t help but lose the edge to her stare when she saw that he was, somehow, beaming. “You’re not… mad?” 

“Mad! Why w… I’m not mad. Diana, are… are _you_ mad at me?”

She shook her head, migrated her hands across the distance between them and wrapped her arms around him. She barely spoke. “I’m scared.”

It took no time at all for him to return the embrace, cradling her head closer to his chest with one hand and catching as much of the rest of her in his other arm as he could. “Me too. But we’re going to figure it out. We always do.”

“Do we?” Diana asked. “I mean… did we figure things out on the other path? How am I supposed to… in this shelter…” Another cruel tear marked its way down the open side of her face.

Sigma leaned back slightly. “In the other path, we were going to try and when you went in for your appointment…”

Diana felt the pain in the tightening of his hold. “It was too late.”

“But it’s not too late now. I’m going to do everything I can to make sure—” Sigma’s voice was nearly breaking. “I’m giving you my rations, and we can keep you on bed rest…”

“Sigma, no!” Diana protested, pushing away. “I need you to stay strong so you can help me if… when I need it.” 

Though his eyebrows were angled in frustration, Sigma had clearly been fighting a tear of his own. “No. I’m doing it. I’m not going to let you be unwell ever again, if I can help it.”

“Sigma,” she said softly. “I just mean, if I’m really as far along as I think I am, there’s a chance you’re going to have to help me when the time comes. After all, I can’t do my own job if _I’m_ the patient, right?”

His stern expression lightened when she hopped up on her tiptoes and offered her mouth for a quick kiss.

“But that’s not gonna work,” Sigma said with an edge of concern.

“Why not?!” Just when she thought the heart-pounding nonsense was over, her chest burned.

“... because we’ll both have to be _patient_ ,” he finished with a smile. 

Diana paused, then registered. “You,” she sighed. Admittedly, the joke caught her off-guard enough to open a grin. It seemed unlike him, but at the same time she felt a comforting sense that the ice of the situation was melting faster than ever. Maybe the timing hadn’t been accidental. 

Suddenly, Sigma knelt before her and took her hand. His other hand hovered below the slight curve of her stomach. “May I?”

Her brow furrowed. “Um, I don’t know if you could feel it moving,” she admitted. “I–I mean, you’re welcome to…”

“Doesn’t matter,” he said. He pressed his hand firmly and looked up at her with wide eyes.

For a moment, even if she knew she _shouldn’t_ biologically feel anything, she could swear something inside her moved. Probably intestines, a muscle twitch in response—but she couldn’t help but delight in the small reassurance at his touch. She squeezed his hand.

“If I had to guess, I’m not more than three months along, but I don’t imagine I could be much less,” she explained. She thought of the tally board he’d made by the bar.

He narrowed his eyes. “What about the morning sickness? Are you feeling okay?”

“I guess I didn’t really feel sick until today. That’s lucky.”

It was lucky they were even _alive_ to begin with. It was lucky the decision game hadn’t murdered them. It was lucky that whatever fruit the fetus resembled, it was firmly rooted in her and didn’t show any signs of distress. 

Still holding her hand, Sigma kept his eyes on hers.

“You’re really okay with this?” he asked quietly.

Why he seemed intent upon asking her was a mystery, although he did seem truly enthused by the news. If only it’d happened on the outside. She shook her head, hoping to feel another tiny ripple of a kick from her abdomen instead of a pulse picking up pace.

“Yeah. It was my choice, too.”

Sigma leaned forward and pressed his face into her stomach, muttering something on warm breath.

“Ah—hey, that tickles!” Diana gasped. She tapped him lightly on the head.

All too quickly, he stood and hugged her tight.

“I’m ready, Diana. I love you,” Sigma said. 

“Sigma, I…”

The twisting in her stomach returned, one that she couldn’t reconcile as intestinal or fetal. Her clothes felt suddenly too hot, the floor dropped under her heels, and her stomach clenched. She fought against his arms.

“—I’m gonna be sick!”

As she tore past him to the bar trashcan, she knew she’d have to make up for that moment for a long time.

**Author's Note:**

> More to come; the high rating will be earned starting in the next chapter. I plan to explore the details of Diana's bomb-shelter pregnancy and all the fun things the two of them have to cope with as well as some alternative timelines I thought about while I played.


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